I'm so exhausted already and I still have at least another hour of work left to do. Sigh. We've been recording the listening portion of the midterms all afternoon. I can barely speak at this point, and I still have nother test to do.

A kid today had a shirt on that said, "So clean -- So fresh." I thought it was ironic, especially since these kids smell so freaking bad after P.E.

I have that stupid speech contest tomorrow that I have to judge. ::dread:: It's going to be 6 hours of horror....But they pay me a little and give me a free lunch, so it can't be all bad... ::vain hope::

It's so weird that there are actually people here who discriminate against homosexuals. It's especially weird since physical barriers hardly exist here. More than once--lemme tell you--have I seen boys sitting on each other's laps here. They have their legs spread open and nobody notices (except me, the jaded--or am I uptight?--American). Guys have their arms around each other while they walk, they hang on each other, link arms....it's refreshing how innocent they are. When I first saw guys doing that, I thought, 'Oh, their just boyfriends, that's all,' but that has nothing to do with it; they're just plain, old-fashioned friends. Nothing more. Americans are too anal and over-analyzing. You do ANYTHING in the States and people think you're gay. Here, nobody's the wiser. One of the speeches I'm going to be judging tomorrow is by a gay guy who is going to be talking about unconscious discrimination. It's a really good speech; I can't wait to hear him actually give it.

I think the Neo-Nazi Party has infiltrated the companies that make 和英辞典 here. On more than one occasion, I've had a kid who, while speaking about a bald person, used the word "skinhead." I kid you not. In one of the 一年生 classes, today, a kid said that he respects the person he respects the most (okay, so it was a lame speech topic) because he's a skinhead. Again, I kid you not. I thought, "WTF? You seem so normal and nice." It took me a minute before I realized that he meant "bald," not "skinhead." I swear there is Neo-Nazi カンニング going on here....

Well, gotta go RE-RECORD the freaking listening portion I already did because we (西室先生 and I) used the wrong equipment and the sound quality is too poor, PLUS I have to record the thing for Dellming 先生.

Heh heh. Actually, I'm able to do it because I have a Japanese keyboard. There's a funny button on the side that switches between romaji, ひらがな, カタカナ, and 漢字. I think there are some programs that you can download that have a funny little window that pops up in the corner of the screen and allows you to switch between syllabaries. But I dunno. Sorry.